New Orleans At the end of the directors’ meeting in Toronto at a pub around the corner to where we had been staying in the summer housing at Toronto Metropolitan University, there were signs along the patio wall advertising a host of local beers. There was a metallic sign for Fat Tire with their famous bicycle symbol and Colorado in big letters underneath. You don’t see Fat Tire just anywhere. When the server came around, I pointed at the sign and asked if they served Fat Tire in the bottles or on tap? I was surprised that the company no longer seemed to be distributing anything but cans, so I wondered what the pub was doing about all of that. She looked at me strangely, then over her shoulder to the patio wall with the sign, and then said flatly, “no, we don’t serve American beers.” No fool, I answered, “of course not, just curious when I saw the sign.”
This exchange for the foolish would be common, but this quiet boycott, provoked by Trump’s stirring up a mess with his talk about making Canada the 51st state, was everywhere around Toronto during the week I was there. Signs were posted in business and restaurant windows about being Canadian owned and operated. There seemed to be new logos in many that mentioned Toronto or Canada as subtle, but clear messages to local consumers, much like a couple of years ago Black Lives Matter was a signifier in may US neighborhoods about race and violence after his killing.
The recent federal elections made the same point, as the Liberal candidate came from back in the pack to edge out the Conservative standard-bearer who been sidling up to Trump after his victory in the south, erasing his 30-point lead only six months ago. The Conservatives picked up seats, but the leader himself lost in his riding. Doug Ford, the Ontario premier and a staunch conservative, who would have normally been one of the first to sport a MAGA hat has busily been trying to underscore his anti-51st pro-Canada chauvinism. The premier of Alberta, one of the western provinces dominated by the oil and gas industry, has gone the other way, embracing Trump, making the Mar de Lago pilgrimage for a photo op, and pushing a referendum on whether they should succeed from Canada. This is an issue that isn’t going away anytime soon, at least until 2028.
If there was any doubt, flying out of Pearson, the big international Toronto airport, there were no lines to go through customs to the United States. Global Entry was so sparse that none of the photo passport machines were working. It was all personal. The regular lines were hardly any longer. The Air Canada Maple Leaf club near the gates flying to the US were thinly populated as well. My flight through Dulles was pretty full, but many were connecting on to other cities around the world. Travel economists are projecting a 10% decrease in foreign travel to the USA this year and many summertime locations are feeling the pain and crying about it.
There are consequences of Trump’s imperial presidency. Being in Canada is still a pleasure, since people continue to be gracious and friendly on a personal level, but it sometimes seems more out of pity for Americans rather than good neighborly.